Sunday, May 23, 2010

7 tips for managing your time better

It’s taken me a while to realise what is most important to me and to arrange my time accordingly. I knew what was important but I was just not prioritising my time. Since implementing a bit of a routine here, things have run so much better and I feel like I get so much more done. I know I used to waste a lot of time and have learnt a lot recently so I thought I’d share some tips.

1.) Work out what deserves your time most then plan things accordingly. My daughters deserve my time the most, so I have planned my routine around them. I plan activities for us every day and in general I am just spending more quality time with them.2.) Develop a routine. Mine is a very loose routine, more of a rough guideline, since things can change at any time. Basically the morning is spent going out, to the park or whatever. We come home for a nap, during which time I work. The afternoon is variable, sometimes we go out, sometimes we sing and read books, then we do dinner and the girls go to bed. Once they are in bed I work again. I have been getting much more done knowing I have a short timeframe in which to do things and I have been enjoying my daughters more.3.) Combine tasks. When you do things, see if they can serve 2 purposes. For example, my daughters love to dance, so I dance with them. My eldest tells me how to do it and she is very active. I am now classing this as my work out, because it uses every part of my body and gets my heart pumping. So instead of going for a 1 hr walk or something, I am spending time with my daughters, but still exercising, so I save myself 1 hour.4.) Get rid of the TV. There are so many reasons for this. I wrote about a bunch of them here.5.) Ask yourself if it is worth your time. For a while there, I was doing all surveys and things that got sent to me. Most are not worth my time, so I pick and choose now. 6.) No guilt. I have decided not to feel guilty about saying no to things I do not want to do. If I don’t want to go to a cafe I won’t, if I don’t want to travel 3 hours to go to a party, I won’t. I do what I can, when I can, but I am not going to put myself into a spin trying to do everything for everyone. 7.) Don’t procrastinate. Procrastination makes things build up and take longer than they should have. Take cleaning a bathroom for example. If you do it regularly it is a chore, but shouldn’t take too long. If you leave it for a few weeks the mould, soap scum, toothpaste splatters and things build making the job take 5 times longer than it needs too. If there is something that needs to be done, just sit down and do it!

I am not perfect at this and I will never pretend to be, but since implementing these things my life has been running so much smoother and I am definitely less stressed.

1 comment
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Great list. I think we are all guilty of getting side-tracked and losing focus from time to time. I certainly am!

I definately think that working out your priorities is the first and most important step. Without doing that, you just drift along, getting pulled this way and that by external forces. Reminds me of the story of the professor and the empty jar (just added it to my other blog: Stories for Sunday.